CHAPTER 34
A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY
It would be altogether impossible for me to give any idea of the utter
astonishment which overcame the Professor on making this extraordinary
discovery. Amazement, incredulity, and rage were blended in such a way as to
alarm me.
During the whole course of my Life I had never seen a man at first so
chapfallen; and then so furiously indignant.
The terrible fatigues of our sea voyage, the fearful dangers we had passed
through, had all, all, gone for nothing. We had to begin them all over again.
Instead of progressing, as we fondly expected, during a voyage of so many
days, we had retreated. Every hour of our expedition on the raft had been so
much lost time!
Presently, however, the indomitable energy of my uncle overcame every other
consideration.
"So," he said, between his set teeth, "fatality will play me these terrible tricks.
The elements themselves conspire to overwhelm me with mortification. Air, fire,
and water combine their united efforts to oppose my passage. Well, they shall
see what the earnest will of a determined man can do. I will not yield, I will not
retreat even one inch; and we shall see who shall triumph in this great contest—
man or nature."
Standing upright on a rock, irritated and menacing, Professor Hardwigg, like
the ferocious Ajax, seemed to defy the fates. I, however, took upon myself to
interfere, and to impose some sort of check upon such insensate enthusiasm.
"Listen to me, Uncle," I said, in a firm but temperate tone of voice, "there
must be some limit to ambition here below. It is utterly useless to struggle
against the impossible. Pray listen to reason. We are utterly unprepared for a sea
voyage; it is simply madness to think of performing a journey of five hundred
leagues upon a wretched pile of beams, with a counterpane for a sail, a paltry